Arab World's Love-Hate for the U.S.
Sept. 26 -- Americans are used to images of resentment and anger from the Arab world. A less familiar sight is Arabs buying hamburgers at the McDonald's in Cairo, lattes at the Starbucks in Beirut, or ice cream at the Baskin-Robbins in Yemen.
Although there is widespread animosity toward America across the Arab world — especially over U.S. policy toward Israel and the Palestinians — many Arabs embrace aspects of American life and American culture.
"It is a love-hate relationship," said Mustafa Harmaneh, a political analyst in Jordan. "Culturally, American music is popular. American food is popular. American clothes are popular. People still wear jeans with American flags on them. They wear baseball hats and they don't see any contradiction in that, despite the animosity toward America."
Satellite dishes are a common sight in many Arab nations, and much of the programming that comes in is American.
"I like Knots Landing," said one woman in Jordan, where the 1980s soap opera is popular." And I watch the movies we see on the Oscars, and the films shown on television. The American life is an interesting life."
However, there is a split between those who embrace American culture and those who see it as immoral and particularly offensive to Muslims. Fundamentalist clerics, such as Egypt's Sheik Yussef al-Badri, fear America's moral standards will poison Muslims.
"Girlfriend, boyfriend — they make a family without any contract and marrying. This is bad behavior. In the cinema, in the theater, in everything, they spread bad characters, bad behaviors, bad deeds," said al-Badri.
American Ideals Praised, but Hypocrisy Seen
Arabs also hold more lofty American institutions in high regard. Mohammed al-Shukairy, a Palestinian attorney raised in Jordan and educated at England's Oxford, said he admires many things about the United States: "Liberty, freedom, in all its forms, freedom of speech, a legal system of integrity, accountability, the fact that you have a more effective form of democracy than other regime[s]."
